


Dust In The Wind

by righteous_killjoy



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Multi, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-09-01 16:51:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20261374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/righteous_killjoy/pseuds/righteous_killjoy
Summary: It's been a month since starcourt burnt down to ashes. A month since all of these people mysteriously went missing.Life goes on, and the kids have to get back to their lives, holding their trauma and the memory of their loved ones equally close.-Or another fix it fic because this is what we need.-





	1. Ain't no cure for the summertime blues

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title from the Kansas Song. Every chapter will have a song name because I'm creative like that.  
Chaptor Title from Eddie Cochran's summertime blues  
As you'll notice soon enough, English isn't my first language. I'm writing this to improve my phrasing skills so it may sound awkward. I just hope it's still possible to read.  
I take constructive criticism ahah

The alarm went off.

Summer was over, and this day was the first of a new school year. With a groan, Max opened her eyes and slowly sat on her bed. The rest of the holidays had felt like it lasted a whole year. A year full of all kind of psychological struggle. The party stuck together, but for a while, it was mostly quiet. Everyone trying to process what happened to them. Again. It will be a life long job to pile this trauma on top of all the other ones. Even Max, who arrived in Hawkins about a year ago knew it. 

Nightmares were the worst. Most of the days when closed her eyes, all she could see was blood, all she could hear were screams. Her new best friend on the floor, screaming her lungs out as a tiny monster was crawling in her leg. Blood dripping from her new brother’s torso, blood everywhere. The tentacle piercing right through him as he screamed through his last breath.The mall disappearing in fire, with the threat of losing the whole town with it. To lose her new home.

She felt like she could still hear screaming from afar.

She shivered as she stepped into the shower. The water successfully chasing away the tears that were beginning to build up in the corner of her eyes.

Going back to school... to the normal world... It made it all to real.

She has spent the whole month with Lucas, Mike and Dustin. None of them able to bear the weight of loneliness. Of silence. Not that they always were capable of talking. Sure the normal teenage talks were back a couple of days after starcourts, and there were waves of laughter and all. But sometimes all of it just seemed empty to Max. In these moments, she was more than happy to stay quiet, watching one of the movies Harrington provided them. They've seen quite a lot this summer. Choosing a movie was the worst part. Lucas was all over action movies, the one that made her eyes roll and Dustin gash his (new) teeth. He and Mike were, of course, more of the science-fiction kind of guys. It's not like the redhead hated it, but to be honest, she could use some silly, sugar-coated, happily ever after comedy at this time. The guys hated her for that, but they were understanding and watched Flashdance without even complaining that much. She was grateful for that, and felt warm watching these movies, her head on Luca's shoulder. She almost felt safe once again.

As the day passed, they were getting used to it. She was almost sure she saw Mike shed a single tear one night when they went through Two of a kind.

She smiled at the memory.

The dynamic of the group just wasn't the same with El and Will gone, but Max couldn't even begin to imagine how hard it would have been if they have been separated. How Mike would have deal with his girlfriend moving away from him without Dustin's bad jokes. How she could have deal with her brother being killed in front of her eyes without Lucas’ arms.

As she thought of him, a new wave of sorrow hit her, and she finally turned the water off and stepped out. Just as she was about to put on a yellow striped shirt, she decided against it and left the bathroom. She was walking in the corridor, still rolled in her towel. She stopped when she passed Billy's door and took a deep breath.

Nothing had moved since the last time he was here. Max wasn't even sure her mom or Neil had entered it once during the last month.

_ They didn't know. She was the only one to know. _

Were they even wondering where he was gone? From what she's heard when she was eavesdropping, Neil just thought he was playing rough and ran away for the summer. Maybe off to california to get drunk and fool around.

_ He'll see when he comes back. Oh, he will believe me! And I'll make sure his runaway fantasies are over. Enough with the rebellious teenager act. _

So, nobody was searching for him then. Not that they would find anything to begin with, but it would have been nice to know that somebody cared. Anger was replacing sorrow now. These emotions had been her most faithful friends these days. And she knew it wasn't the end of it. The beginning if anything.

She opened the closet, taking a shirt from the front pile. She glanced at the logo in the front, she could almost hear Def Leppard blasting in another room. Except nothing is blasting anywhere, and it will never be heard here again. She put it on and stepped out of the room. That may sound stupid, but she felt safer now. Wearing his clothes was like a reminder of who her stepbrother was, a reminder that he was here and hasn't just been erased from Hawkin's history. It felt right. 

She finished getting dressed, took her board and left the house.

She sighed as she stepped outside, looking at an empty parking spot. The Camaro had burnt down with the rest of the mall. She quickly wondered if the police found it’s number plate. Something that could have lead them to her family. Maybe his father would have started to worry if he knew the car burned down. Or maybe he would have just gotten angrier. Anyway, she decided to stop immediately this train of thought. If she wonders where the car has gone, she will start to wonder where he... where his body’s gone. And that would totally mess up the fake composure she has build during her morning routine. 

At least, it was still summertime. The weather was hot, the sky was bright, so skateboarding to school wasn’t that bad. Rain would have messed with her mood, and her composure, just as much as dark thoughts. She pressed play on her walkman and got going as the first notes of Boston’s  _ A Man I’ll Never Be _ started to resonate.    
She left out a burst of sour laughter. Billy bought, or more likely stole, her this walkman a couple of months ago. She wasn’t sure it could be considered as a gift though. He felt guilty he broke her former one out of rage and gave it to her as a replacement. Anyway, it was a good one, a better one. It was a gift, she eventually decided. It was a good gift, and she will use it until it dies. Billy won’t use his tapes anymore, max has sadly thought, so she took some of it. Partly because it gave her more stuff to listen too, but it was also another reminder of him. The saturated guitar loops will always be connected to her brother in her mind. Oddly enough, Hard Rock wasn’t the only thing she found when she was going through his tapes collection. She didn’t know what to expect exactly when she started, but she wasn’t prepared to come face to face with a Billy Joel home-made best of. Oh boy he would have kill her if he knew she saw it. To be honest, he would have kill her if he saw her enter in his room, let alone going through his stuff. 

Now that she was thinking about it, the tape was one of the only oddity she was confronted to in his room. She was honestly sure she will find nothing but filth when she got there, but it wasn’t the case. A couple of magazines, who looked as good as new, some weed she contemplated stealing, and Billy Joel. That was it. Even for a regular teenager, it looked suspicious. Suspicious because it wasn’t suspicious at all. A 17-year-old boy is supposed to have plenty of weird secrets, some kind Max wouldn’t want to know. But nothing.    
Billy may look, well, looked like bad news, but as far as she’s concerned, he wasn’t as much as a difficult kid. Good grades, always back on time for the curfew. If this wasn’t for the attitude, the anger issues and the alcohol abuse, he would have been an exemplary kid. Well ok, there was quite a lot of things to get rid of in order to get the ideal son. He also didn’t have the choice about some of these. She knew, she heard the noises, the yelling. But still, he definitely could have been worse.

Anyway, she might take the weed, all things considered.

She stopped her board right at the final note of  _ More than a feeling,  _ smiling a little. She always loved that kind of perfectly synchronized stuff.    
She waved at the guys, who were hitching their bike in front of the school’s entrance. As she was walking to them, the bell started ringing.    
  


And that was it.

_ Life goes on. _


	2. Surviving Self Resentment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, if someone here was waiting for this second chapter I must say I'm sorry for how long it took for me to write it.  
I tried to start too many things at once and had a hard time balancing my schedule. But I think it will get better now.  
(Mostly because I broke my ankle and am now unable to run or do sport. So. Plenty of free time.)  
I was scared of starting again, but it's still fun to write, even if I still don't feel really comfortable with english.  
Anyway, title from an Insense song,  
Enjoy. Or don't.  
Actually, please, enjoy.

The day started with the chemistry class. This was the best the kids could hope for, since the guys really liked their teacher, mister Clarke. Max didn’t know him that much but she admitted he seemed to be a decent guy. Which is a lot to say considering the guy was a teacher. And the redhead didn’t really see a difference between that and a prison guard.  
However, he seemed as pleased as her friends to see his students again and proceeds to greet the class with a cheerful tone that filled Max with a kind of anger.  
As he was talking, Max let her gaze go around the room. Seems like Will’s desk will remain empty this year. Which also means that she’s still the new kid. This kind of sucked.  
Her thoughts got interrupted as she heard Mr Clark asking a simple question.  
“ So, how did you spend your holidays ?”  
He then proceeds to question random students, starting with a girl named Ana, or something like that. Max didn’t pay attention to what the girl was saying. To be brutally honest, even if her own summer had been a regular, boring one, she wouldn’t have cared either.  
_Please do not ask me._  
What was she supposed to tell her classmates?  
_Please do not ask us._  
Sure, she could lie. Problem is that, at the moment, her mind is too noisy to generate a coherent story. She used to be a good liar.  
_Oh yeah you know regular stuff, we fought an extraterrestrial octopus kinda thing who possessed my brother. Oh he died, thanks for asking. But this is a secret you know. The trauma is ok though, would have been better if my best friend and her superpowers didn’t move hours away from here, but life sucks like that sometimes you know._  
Her blood was beginning to boil in her veins, she only rose her head when she heard Dustin's voice. He was trying to sound laid off, but she could hear how hard he was breathing.  
“I went to a math camp for a couple of weeks, then, back in Hawkins, we mostly played video games at the arcade, and dungeon and dragons. I’m a mage !”  
If Will was here, you surely would have heard him scream “liar” with all his strength. For her part, she was starting to think she learned to play for nothing. Once again, 4 hours of her life she’ll never get back.  
After what felt like an eternity, Mr. Clarke started the actual teaching. Not that it was any better.  
She tried her best not to blame the enthusiastic teacher, knowing it wasn’t his fault she was a bitter teenager not wanting to go back to school. But, being a bitter teenager, she failed at it.

Another class. Break. Class. Lunch break. “Wow, you got PB&J! Wanna trade?”. Class. Break. Another boring class. End of the day.  
By the second period, Max’s mind went blank and she was on auto-pilot again. Guess that nothing really changes, no matter how life-changing the summer break can seem.

The bell rang for the last time of this first day of school. The kids could finally go back home. Well, she hasn’t really been looking forward to it, but she didn’t have any other choices. Dustin left immediately, mumbling something about English homework, Lucas had to take Erica Home, and Mike had to go home, also. He said he promised to call El and Will in the evening, so they can share their “back to school” experiences. Of course. She sighed, feeling that complaining about her first day of school was selfish. Yes, it was a pain in the ass but they were still in the same school, and they were still together, for the most part. The routine could take over, and they didn’t have to really think about what was happening around them. It was a safe place. Well, safe… Everything is relative. Hawkins couldn’t really be described as a safe town, considering all that went down for the past three years. But, it was a known, familiar place.  
Will and El, for their part, they were not in Hawkins anymore. They started the school year in a whole different town, in a whole different school. Everything was strange, new. Every face was a stranger’s. They had to go through the hell of being the new kid while trying to process a whole panel of new traumas.  
Guilt was taking over as she watched her friends take their bike and leave. She should call, too. Will and Max weren’t that close, but El, on the other hand… She was her best friend.  
They grew to know each other pretty late, with all the rough things that happened since Max’s arrival in Hawkins. With how things were going, years could have gone by without them getting any closer… If Mike hadn’t been such a dick. This was kind of funny.  
The redhead laughed at the memory of her friend, coldly dumping Mike, an Ice cream cone on her hand. Max was so proud of her at that moment.  
Yeah. She should call. She did a couple of times during summer, but it felt so awkward, so empty. She wasn’t good with the phone. This is partly why she didn’t have any news from her friends back in California. She tried to call, but as time went by, they had fewer and fewer things in common. She tried, but she didn’t know what to say. Picking up a conversation topic was something that came naturally to her in person. She considered herself as easy to talk to. When she was in the mood. On the phone, everything seemed so distant, so unreal. So she didn’t call. She was afraid to let things become the same with El than it was with her ex-friends from California. Max was scared to lose her friend. And because of that, she was acting like anything like a friend.  
El needed her. She wasn’t prepared enough for the real world. And until now, Mike had always been here to help her. To be honest, he might have been a little too protective, that girl needed to learn. You can’t teach anything to anyone when you prevent them to make any mistake. And now, she was in a completely new universe. What if people made fun of her? Of her clothes, the way she speaks? She didn’t want her best friend to come home to cry, and if she did, she wanted to know. She wanted to be there to cheer her up. If using a damn phone was the only way to reach her, she’ll call. Max promised herself she would call.

Smiling a little, she opened the front door of her room. Yelled “I’m home” and went right to the stairs, planning to go directly to her bedroom. Of course, her mom wasn’t having that.  
“Honey! Come here!” she said, happy as a clam.  
Grudgingly, Max turned back and headed to the kitchen to join her mom. She put down the zucchini she was cutting and went to hug her daughter, a huge smile on her face. While still in the hug, Max looked behind her mother and saw Neil speaking on the phone. Looks like his shifted finished sooner today. She wasn’t able to really figure out what he was saying but his voice seemed pretty still. However, his face was closed and his knuckles on the phone were white. This was Neil Hargrove, pretending to be a laidback dude, successfully hiding to the world what a rage-filled little man he was.  
“How was your day?” she was cut in her thoughts by her mother’s question. She looked up to her, who was back to her cooking cutting board, and was looking at her with the same smile.  
Of course, she would ask this. She was surely hoping her daughter’s day had been exciting enough to distract her from her angry husband. Honestly, did she really remember what school was like? Of course, it wasn’t. But she was waiting, that stupid smile still painted on her face. This was Susan Mayfield, successfully being the queen of deny.  
“It wasn’t that bad, We..” started the redhead, but she stopped in the middle of her sentence, surprised by the noise of Neil hanging up the phone. Or more accurately by the “FUCK” he let out as soon as it was hanged. He remained silent, arms crossed, and her mom put her hand on Max’s shoulder.  
“You know what, you look tired. Just go and get changed, relax a little in your room and you’ll tell us everything during dinner!” She was still smiling, but her eyes told another story. _He’s about to explode, I don’t want you being here._  
Obedient, Max left the kitchen, but instead of climbing all the stairway, she sat down in the middle of it and listened. Today she felt curious, and to be honest she was a little scared. From what she knows, Neil never laid his hands on her mother, but who knows how many time it will last. No one closed the door. How convenient, she thought.  
“It was fucking Highschool. He didn’t show up, of course, he didn’t.” Began Neil, voice starting to shake, as he was trying no to yell yet. “Fucking Principal with his fucking sentences, thinking he’s better than me. Yeah, I know school started today for fuck’s sake. What was I supposed to say? Eh ?” Voice was beginning to raise, he was losing his temper.  
“Honey, please calm down, what did he say?” Tried Susan, her voice low and soft.  
“The dick was implying I didn’t know where my own son was with his condescending stupid tone.”  
Max almost cracked up laughing at that. _Do you know where your son is? Do you?_  
Instead, she just jolted as a loud noise made itself heard. He probably hit the wall again. _Whatever pleases you, man._  
“I would have loved to see him raising this little brat. The kid is probably enjoying himself, knowing how he humiliated me once again. Look, the Californian dude with his crappy house, not even able to keep track on his fucking kid.”_ Bang._  
“It’s been more than a month... “ Whispered his wife. “Maybe we should..”  
“Don’t.” He interrupted.  
“Maybe we should talk to the police.” She finished, finding deep down the courage to contradict her angry husband.  
“Susan please, we’ve been around that already. We’re not wasting public money on a runaway brat. He’ll come back when he’ll realize adult life is not a piece of cake, and he’ll learn.”  
The woman didn’t say anything to that and resumed cooking.

“I need a smoke. I’m heading to the shop, I’ll be back for dinner.” Neil said, a couple of silent seconds later.  
As soon as he finished his sentence, Max ran upstairs, and hide behind a wall until she heard the door close.  
She went back to her room, put on a “borrowed” record and started crying, not needing to be discreet as Alice Cooper’s _School’s Out_ was echoing in all the first floor.


End file.
